Peter Temple - Bad Debts

The door was opened by a man in shirtsleeves and red braces. His tie was loose and he had a drink in his hand. ‘Come in, Mr Irish,’ he said.

It was the Minister for Police, Garth Bruce.

The suite was pale grey and pink like the corridor. We went through a small hallway into a large sitting room furnished with French period reproductions. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, an ice bucket, a water carafe and cut-glass whisky glasses stood on a table against the wall. A briefcase was open on a small writing desk between opulently curtained windows.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Bruce said. ‘Sorry about the escort. Let me give you a drink. Whisky, anything.’

I said no thanks, curtly.

He was at the side table with his glass. He put it down and turned, a big man, bigger in life than on television. He’d boxed. There was scar tissue around his eyes. It hadn’t shown up on television. That would take skilful make-up. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘this is friendly. Let’s have a quiet drink together. It’s very much in your interests. Okay? What’ll you have?’

I asked for whisky and water. He made two drinks and brought mine over. We sat down a metre apart. He took a big drink.

‘That’s better,’ he said, sighing. ‘Jesus, what a day. Politics. Win one, lose ten.’ He took a cigarette out of a packet and offered the packet to me. I shook my head.

Bruce lit up with a lighter, blew out a long, thin stream of smoke and tapped the cigarette in the direction of an ashtray. Ash drifted to the carpet. He sat back, shoulders loose, and said, ‘Jack, I’m told you’ve been asking around about a lot of old business, things that happened nine, ten years ago. That right?’

‘Who tells you?’

He had another big drink. His eyes never left me. There was an appealing sadness about them. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got a lot of time. I don’t want to dance around with you. When I got this job, I appointed a new Commissioner and a new deputy. The first thing I said to them, I said: “The fucking joke’s over.”’

He leaned forward. ‘I was a cop for nearly twenty years, Jack. I know the system, I know what goes on. Everything. These new blokes knew that I knew what I was talking about. Cops’ve been bullshitting politicians for years. They can’t do that to me. I’m not going to sit in a high chair and be fed shit with a spoon. That’s why the Premier wanted me in this job.’

He drew on his cigarette and studied me. The silence and the open gaze were disconcerting. He hadn’t been a cop for twenty years for nothing.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the point is, when this Danny McKillop got knocked behind the Trafalgar, I called in the file. I’ve had it with all this Dirty Harry shit. They see it on television. Twenty years, I fired three shots, all in response to cunts firing at me.’

He sat back, stubbed out his cigarette, put his hands in his pockets. ‘I read the wife’s statement, reckoned there were some questions about what made McKillop so scared. Told the Commissioner that. He came back with all the background, the Jeppeson trial stuff, and the missing person’s report on this Bishop.’

Bruce got up, took out another cigarette, flamed it with the lighter, went to the windows. ‘Can’t sit for long,’ he said. ‘Back’s buggered. Anyway, Jack, what the Commissioner tells me is that the blokes he’s had going over this business find your tracks all over the place. You’re giving Vin McKillop money, you’re in Perth, you’re everywhere.’

He turned his head towards me. ‘What’s really worrying, Jack,’ he said quietly, ‘is that you were out there in the bush at Daylesford and it looks liked you wiped clean a whole lot of places. Places that could have had the prints of whoever topped Bishop and the druggie quack.’

He looked out into the night again. ‘Now that is very, very serious,’ he said. ‘You know how serious, Jack.’

I had seen this coming but I still didn’t know how to handle it. Bruce turned. There was a sheen on his face and on his scalp showing through the short, thinning hair.

‘I never found the doctor’s place,’ I said. ‘Got lost.’

He gave me a slow cop smile. ‘That’s a porky, Jack. If you were going to tell porkies, you should’ve changed the tyres on that motor Col Boon loaned you. Your tracks are all over the place.’

He came back to his chair and sat down carefully. ‘That was a really stupid thing to do. The Commissioner wants to charge you. But he came to me first. That’s why you’re sitting here, not in metropolitan remand.’

We sat in silence for a while. The little carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half hour, a silver splinter of sound.

Bruce picked up his glass, looked at it, rolled it like a thimble between his big, hairy hands. ‘I knew that prick killed your wife,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘Wayne Milovich. Knew him for years. He was always a dangerous animal. Only had to look at his eyes.’

I didn’t know what to say. There was silence again. Bruce rolled his glass.

‘Crim tried to shoot my daughter,’ he said. ‘She was in the kitchen, looking in the fridge. Went through her hair, through the cupboard, through the wall. Couldn’t pin it on him. Bloke called Freely. We knew it was him. His whole fucking family, about fifty of them, said he was watching TV at the time. Couldn’t shake them. And by Jesus we shook some of them.’

‘I never heard about that,’ I said.

‘No. We kept it quiet. You don’t want to give the other animals ideas.’

He got up, collected my glass and made the drinks. While his back was turned, he said, voice just a little rough, ‘She was sixteen, lovely girl. Not the same again. Ever. Lost to me. To all of us. In and out of the funny farms. Cut her wrists, swallowed anything she could find. They found her on the beach just before Christmas. Her birthday was Boxing Day. Twenty-first that year. My fault, I suppose. My wife thought so, anyway. Never forgave me.’

I looked at the big back, the way he was holding himself. ‘You can’t take the blame for what mad people do,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t know.’ My voice seemed too loud.

‘You could say I did know,’ Bruce said flatly. ‘He told me he was going to do it. Outside court. He said, “Watch your family, Bruce, something could happen to them.” I told him, “You wouldn’t have the guts, you chickenshit little bastard.” I laughed at him. He was a runt, five foot fuckall. You’d never credit that he would do it.’

He brought my drink over. I got up to take it. We stood together awkwardly, not knowing where to look, some kind of bond of loss between us. I knew now why I wasn’t in metropolitan remand.

‘Cheers,’ Bruce said.

‘Cheers.’

We drank.

‘Never said anything to you? Milovich.’

‘Just the normal abuse. I wouldn’t have paid any attention if he had. I wouldn’t have done anything.’

‘Would you have told your wife?’

I shook my head.

Bruce nodded. He drank again, wiped his mouth and said, ‘You see Danny McKillop after he got out?’

‘No.’

‘So what, you heard about the shooting, started poking around?’

‘No. I was away for a couple of days. When I came back there were messages on my answering machine from him. I didn’t even remember who he was. He was waiting for me at the Trafalgar that night. Only I didn’t play the tape till the next day.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Said he was in trouble. He was scared.’

‘You talk to the wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘She tell you about the phone call, about Danny getting the idea he didn’t kill the Jeppeson woman?’

I nodded.

‘You reckoned there might be something in it, did you?’